Shuttle's homecoming more like flying brick than winged victory

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The space shuttle Discovery became a 103-tonne glider as it
slipped back into the Earth's atmosphere last night.

Having no engines, a shuttle must land on its first attempt.

At 9.06pm Sydney time, while flying tail first at 7.7 kilometres
a second above the western Indian Ocean, Discovery fired two small
rockets for almost three minutes. The orbiter slowed by only about
300 kmh, but enough to fall from orbit. It then rotated to point
its nose forward.

Having passed south of Adelaide, astronaut Andy Thomas's
hometown, the shuttle headed across the Pacific for a pre-dawn
touchdown in California.

At about 9.40pm, as it flew over the Cook Islands, Discovery was
low enough to feel the upper atmosphere brushing its wings. The
shuttle was starting to act like an aircraft rather than a
spacecraft.

Through their windows the crew would have seen the sky turn from
black to crimson as Discovery plunged like a meteor through the
atmosphere. Six minutes later the astronauts began the first of
four steep banks to the left and right. The turns, causing
Discovery to trace an S-shaped path, allowed it to lose speed and
height at the exact rate needed to ensure California's Edwards Air
Force Base runway would be beneath its wheels when it landed almost
half a world, and 26 minutes, later. During the turns Discovery
kept its nose up to 40 degrees above its flight path, so its belly,
covered in black thermal tiles, bore the brunt of the searing heat
of re-entry, which reached 1275 degrees Celcius.

Sixteen minutes from home, and moments before emerging from the
hottest part of the re-entry, Discovery crossed a milestone. It was
at this point that the shuttle Columbia broke up in February 2003,
killing its crew.

Four minutes from Edwards Air Force Base two sonic booms
announced Discovery was almost home. Descending seven times steeper
and dropping 20 times faster than a commercial aircraft, the
powerless orbiter made its final approach to the runway, revealing
why astronauts dub it "the flying brick".

At 10.12pm Sydney time, after four delays, Discovery, on its
31st spaceflight, became the 50th mission in the shuttle program to
land in California. After almost 14 days and 219 orbits around the
world, the 114th shuttle flight was over.

Nervous father cheers on son

The father of the Adelaide-born astronaut Andy Thomas said he had a
few nervous moments before his son touched down safely on board the
space shuttle Discovery.

"Entering the atmosphere at a speed of 17,000 miles an hour and
slowing down - that was the tricky part," Adrian Thomas said last
night.

As he waited for his son to call, he said he was relieved when
Andy told him this would be his last flight. "After all he's put me
through he'd better ring me quickly."